This special session invites papers that explore the countervailing, and occasionally contradictory, double meanings obtaining in our notion of the “public intellectual” today. This session is especially interested in papers that comment on the figure of the public intellectual by thinking beyond the limits of the university and the academic profession, as traditionally “licensed” intellectual spaces and modes, and consider new networks and formations of intellectual affiliation, movement, and struggle that have emerged with the generalization of social media platforms and digital publishing venues (i.e. twitter, reddit, etc.), and especially in the wake of the election of 2016.

What is Technology? will examine interactions and transactions among practical arts and tools, techniques and processes, moral knowledge and imagination, to navigate our everchanging world. In a broad sense, technology can be understood as methods of intelligent inquiry and problem-solving into all domains of life. The conference-experience will enact a collaborative network of transdisciplinary research by cultivating information and communication as the heart of science, technology, engineering, art, medicine, and environments.

Seeking proposals for MLA 2020 convention: Proposal should investigate questions like what does #MeToo mean in non-Western countries? What does/can #MeToo do for non-Western women? How does #MeToo affect non-Western feminisms? How deos #MeToo translate into non-Western feminisms and cultures? What is #MeToo's place in postcolonial feminism? How can we encourage and engage with inclusive feminisms in the contemporary times? How does #MeToo co-exist with other geographical and religio-political beliefs?

Overall, I seek to discuss #MeToo in non-white and/or non-Western demographics and geographies.

‘There’s a quality of legend about freaks. Like a person in a fairy tale who stops you and demands that you answer a riddle. Most people go through life dreading they’ll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma.’ -Diane Arbus

The Southwest Conference on Christianity and Literature will be held at at the University of Dallas this year. The theme of this year's conference is The Christian Storyteller, and the keynote speaker is Barbara Nicolosi Harrington. We wlcome papers on all aspects of narrative, including film, which is a particular interest of Dr. Harrington's. Please submit abstracts of 150-200 words to Dr. Bernadette Waterman Ward (bward@udallas.edu) by May 30.

In the global era, the transformation of humanity is intrinsically connected to the intensification of transit of people on the surface of the earth — flows of migrants, tourists, professional and educational flows etc. — and simultaneously to transit of cultural elements — flows of images, forms, symbols, stories, codes, formats etc. — occurring in media culture.

For this year's Sixteenth Century Conference, to be held from 17-20 October in St. Louis, Missouri, the International Spenser Society will sponsor a panel on "Angry Spenser". Affect studies are all the rage at present, and the affect of rage is everywhere in Spenser's work. From The Faerie Queene's personifications and allegorical figures (Furor, Pyrochles, Atin) to the bitter satire of "Mother Hubberd's Tale" to the ostensible counsel of A View of the Present State of Ireland, Spenser's poetry not only explores the state, causes, and consequences of rage and wrath of all kinds but is frequently laced with anger.

The International T.S. Eliot Society is accepting proposals for a panel at the 2019 Midwest MLA conference in Chicago, to be held November 14-17, 2019. Any proposal on a subject reasonably related to Eliot studies will be considered. If you are interested in participating, please send abstract proposals (up to 250 words) to Professor Edward Upton (edward.upton@valpo.edu). Please also forward a CV or a brief biographical statement. Submissions must be received no later than May 15, 2019. For more information on MMLA 2019, please go to www.luc.edu/mmla/convention/.

The International Vladimir Nabokov Society invites paper proposals on 'Nabokov and Contemporary Writing' for its guaranteed panel at the MLA 2020 Meeting in Seattle next January. We are interested in papers on how living writers - whether novelists, poets, playwrights, or writers of creative non-fiction - have drawn on Nabokov's work, whether in celebration or in criticism. How does Nabokov continue to be a fertile and challenging presence in contemporary letters?

In order to encourage the next generation of academics, interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed e-journal gender forumlaunched its first annual Early Career Researchers Issue in October 2013. Now every year sees a special issue dedicated to presenting the work of emerging researchers.

Contributions for the upcoming sixth Early Career Researchers Issue may consist of new academic writing composed specifically for the occasion or exceptional, previously unpublished term papers. Please note that given the journal’s focus, all submissions must engage with Gender Studies, Feminist Studies, Masculinity Studies, and/or Queer Theory.

The Eighth Annual WSU Visual Culture Symposium seeks to explore the visual logics of feminist art, theory, and practice, in all their complexity and multiplicity, and to place such logics in the current political moment. From the #MeToo-movement to the Women’s March, feminist activism has drawn national attention in recent years. In some respects, such activism has produced tangible gains: the 116th House of Representatives is the most racially diverse and counts the largest number of women in US history.

Stories are not only told, but are often enacted or explored through play or interactive media. This working group will share in-progress work and discuss the methodological challenges of studying these unique modes of storying.

Proposals invited for a guaranteed interdisciplinary panel that examines the intersections of race, age, and imagined futures--including those that are hopeful, destructive, or endangered. Please send 250-word proposal and 2-page c.v.

What relationships exist between poetic and legal invocations of personhood? What emerges in examining the formal strategies involved in processes of invocation? Seeking papers that put poems and legal texts in conversation. Please send a 300-word proposal by March 13th to tshalev@gradcenter.cuny.edu.

Redefinining public discourse rhetoric in (post)communist Romania 30 years after the fall of communism. How can (post)communist wooden language be used to theorize on the regime? 250 word abstracts and short bios by March 15.

Responses to re-discovered essay “The Future of Marxism.” How does Williams offer us a model for intervening in left-politics today? What does a radical commitment to the human look like? Abstract and CV.

Department of African American Studies at The Pennsylvania State University

deadline for submissions:

Monday, April 1, 2019

The African American Studies Department at The Pennsylvania State University is pleased to announce a conference titled, "Racial Disposability and Cultures of Resistance," to take place on October 10-12, 2019 at the Penn Stater in State College, PA.